Chris Lekupe, Manager of Westgate Conservancy, passes on a fascinating story about human-wildlife co-existence from his father.
My father Subanya Lekupe is a herdsmen and wanders widely with his livestock. One day, many years ago, he decided it was time for me to go to school. I was very young and the school was about 60 km away from where we lived so he held my hand and we walked together, where on reaching the school he would leave me in the hands of the teachers.
We walked in the early mornings so the sun would not catch up with us and on one morning we came upon a herd of Grevy’s zebra. They made a loud noise and scared me – I thought they were trying to protect their young ones and I saw that their ears were enormous! They were hitting the ground with their hooves and making that noise. Smiling, my father asked me if I knew what they were. I grabbed my father’s hand because they were so big, and eventually we walked off in the opposite direction.
As we walked, my father recounted the time when he was a warrior and went to live on top of Mt Nyiro during a very dry year. They had to cut leaves from the top of the mountain for their cows to eat and then it reached a point where there were no more leaves for the cows. So my father had to go and do a survey to find what was next for his livestock. As he came down from South Horr to Loloworu, he found some tracks of Grevy’s zebra. He asked himself “Why is this animal going that way? If it is going to the water, then where is it feeding? It must be eating something”. He looked at the tracks and concluded that one path led to water and that the other must lead to pasture. So he decided to follow the tracks to pasture and after a day of walking finally found the Grevy’s zebra in an open plain resting under a tree. He said to himself, yes, now I got it.
He went back to get his cattle which were already very weak. He took them first to the water point where the Grevy’s zebra drank and then he reached the grazing area. Even though the grass was very dry his cows could still feed. The Grevy’s zebra became his neighbours because he did not interfere with them. They grazed on one side of the plain and his cows on the other. He was the only person. It was him, the cows and the Grevy’s zebra.
Very early in the morning the Grevy’s zebra would wake him up and on days when he went to water, the Grevy’s also moved with him. They understood that the cows are going for water and this man can give us water. The water source where they had been drinking was getting deeper, and the Grevy’s could not reach it any longer. After he watered his cows, he filled the troughs for the Grevy’s. The Grevy’s adapted that way and they moved like a herd. It was like they could communicate with each other. There was no milk from his cows so he ate acacia gum by making a fire and roasting the gum to make it soft so that he could eat it. For around six months he lived with the Grevy’s until his cows grew very strong.
My father told me if you ever find this animal and there is no pasture, just try to identify where it is eating. He said the Grevy’s really helped him so I must not disturb them. He was able use those cows as a dowry for his marriage when all the other cows of his age mates were finished.
I have never stopped looking for a job in conservation and now, coming to Westgate Community Conservancy as the Manager, I have once again met the Grevy’s zebra. Here in Westgate, I have also come across the holistic planned grazing being done for the Grevy’s zebra and the cows, and I remembered my father.
© Mia Collis
In 2015, during the official opening of Grevy’s Zebra Trust’s field camp in Westgate Conservancy, GZT honoured Subanya Lekupe as a Grevy’s Zebra Hero.
